Google Inc (GOOG) Updates To Watch: Bill Gates’ Thoughts On Loon, Adwords Change & More

Editor’s Note: Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)

Bill Gates criticises Google’s Project Loon initiative (The Guardian)
Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)’s Project Loon initiative wants to provide internet access for the developing world from a network of balloons floating in the stratosphere. Former Microsoft boss Bill Gates isn’t keen on the idea. “When you’re dying of malaria, I suppose you’ll look up and see that balloon, and I’m not sure how it’ll help you. When a kid gets diarrhoea, no, there’s no website that relieves that,” Gates told Business Week, in an interview about the work of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “Certainly I’m a huge believer in the digital revolution. And connecting up primary-healthcare centres, connecting up schools, those are good things. But no, those are not, for the really low-income countries, unless you directly say we’re going to do something about malaria.”

Web ad giant (Google) pops Adwords into Maps for iOS and Android (The Register)
Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) has finally woken up and integrated Adwords into its mobile mapping app, pushing paid results onto the top of the heap along with directions guiding customers to your door. The ad addition came with the last update to Google Maps for Android and iOS. It switches on this week with ads popping up at the bottom when one makes a search using the bar at the top. Advertisers will pay out every time a user clicks to make a call, asks for directions or visits the advertiser’s page.

Google Nexus 7 (2013) hands-on review (The Inquirer)
INTERNET GIANT Google’s new Nexus 7 is the firm’s second flagship Android tablet, and it signals that the firm is looking to overtake Apple in the tablet market. Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) clearly is hoping that the new Nexus 7 tablet’s high-end specifications and budget price tag will be able to lure punters away from the iPad Mini, and it might just do that. Whereas the iPad Mini lacks Apple’s high-resolution Retina display, the new Nexus 7 takes the title of the world’s highest resolution 7in Android tablet, which it combines with a nippy quad-core processor and the latest version of Google’s operating system.

Google puts a bit of the X Factor into Motorola (ft.com)
Just how “smart” are smartphones? Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG), Motorola’s corporate parent, thinks they are not smart enough, so it asked Motorola’s engineers to build an easy to use, smarter smartphone from the ground up. The result is the Moto X. I suspect that I don’t have too much in common with Eric Schmidt, Google’s executive chairman. But we do share one thing – we have both adopted the new Moto X smartphone as our day-to-day handset. Mr Schmidt, who was in New York last week for the Moto X launch, has been carrying his handset for several months, while I have been using my test version for only just over a week. But, like him, I am impressed.

Google rolls out digital textbooks, to buy and rent — but students should shop around (Gigaom)
Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) has launched a digital textbooks section of Books on Google Play in the U.S., as promised. The textbooks are available through the Play website, Android and iOS apps. Most of the textbooks are only available for purchase, but a few are available to rent, too. Amazon and Barnes & Noble also rent digital textbooks, and when I compared prices across the stores, I found variability in both availability and how long the rental periods are.